


The Nine Lives of Phillipa Cobb

by ester_inc



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV), Inception (2010)
Genre: Crossover, Dream Sharing, Mindfuck, Post-Apocalypse, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 12:53:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3729667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ester_inc/pseuds/ester_inc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phillipa grows up without a mother, but she is a daughter until the day she dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nine Lives of Phillipa Cobb

**Author's Note:**

> This is a disturbed love child of Inception, 12 Monkeys and Predestination. That's all the warning I'm going to give right now, because for the life of me I can't figure out if it's possible to make html work in this space beyond italics.

Phillipa is a happy child. At least, she does not later remember being unhappy. She is unburdened, and for a child that is enough.

The happy, unburdened life comes to an end when she's too young to fully grasp what she has lost. She used to have a mother; she no longer has one. In the years to come, she loses the faint, lingering memories of her one by one, like pebbles on a beach after a long day of gathering them. 

She loses her father, too, but she is not allowed to forget him. He is a voice on the phone her grandmother holds out to her, the toys her grandfather brings to her when he visits. Phillipa goes to bed each evening listening to the weary lullabies her grandmother sings, the snuffling breaths James makes when he's on the edge of sleep. She dreams of her father's hands lifting her up to the sky.

She dreams long enough for it to become a reality. Her father's voice is kinder when it doesn't have to travel over such great distances, and his hands are steady and sure and never angry. James never quite gets over not having a mother, but while Phillipa sometimes wonders what her life would be like if she was still alive, she can live with her mother being nothing but stones on a beach. Even when she finds out her mother chose to leave them, she is not angry for herself; she is angry for James, and on behalf of her father, who sometimes looks like any one of the scant few pebbles Phillipa has left would be enough to break him.

Phillipa is alone in the house one evening, her father still at work and James staying overnight with a friend. There's a box in her father's closet, and Phillipa drags it out in the open. In the box, under a layer of clothes, on top of a silver suitcase, there is an envelope full of photographs. Sometimes, after a week that drags on for too long, James waking up from nightmares he should have outgrown and eleven-year-old Phillipa threatening to run away from home, her father drinks too much and sits up at night, looking at the life he used to have while waiting for James to wake up and Phillipa to go to sleep.

Phillipa wants to see that life, just once.

She upends the contents of the envelope on the floor and shifts through them with careless, restless fingers. There are places she's never seen, and places she doesn't remember. There are people she knows, her father, her grandparents. There are people she doesn't know, and one of them is her mother. That's her, smiling at the camera in Paris. That's her, the wind whipping her hair on a beach somewhere. That's her, holding a child in her arms. Phillipa doesn't understand how a woman who seems so happy to be alive would end up choosing to die.

She gathers up the photographs and puts them back into the envelope. The last one in her hand is of her and James, and while he is a familiar, warm spark in Phillipa's mind, she doesn't recognize herself. The girl in the photo is a child, unburdened. The girl Phillipa finds in the mirror smiles less, her hair is shorter and darker, her eyes older. 

You look more like your mother every year, says her father, and Phillipa gets a classmate to help her dye her hair bright, bright red. Being grounded, her father not knowing whether to laugh or yell at her, is a small price to pay for getting rid of the sad, conflicted smile haunting his mouth.

-

Phillipa is twelve when people start dying. 

People die all the time, in all kinds of ways, and Phillipa knows this. How could she not? Only now there seems to be only one way to die that matters, and it starts with a cough.

Her father watches the news with a pinched look on his face, turning it off whenever he catches sight of Phillipa or James. They see anyway, the talking heads, the numbers and charts, the sick and the dead. It starts bad and quickly gets worse.

Her father becomes reluctant to go outside, and they have to ration their food. There's rioting on TV. There are people wailing and bodies being thrown into mass graves. Two houses over, their neighbor buries his wife in the backyard; Phillipa peers out at him from her upstairs bedroom window and pretends she's watching TV.

The world ends like this: James starts coughing.

Phillipa holds James' hand and grips too hard. Her father lies and says everything will be fine, but it won't be, there's no cure, James doesn't have time to wait for one, and the agonized, shattered look in her father's eyes is the only thing stopping Phillipa from calling him out.

He takes her and James to his bedroom and pulls out the box from his closet. He disregards the clothes and the photographs and takes out the silver suitcase. Something to help you sleep, he says when James asks; everything will be fine when you wake up, I promise. 

The needle stings going into Phillipa's arm.

Her dreams are disjointed and fractured, and when she wakes up, she's on a beach. The sand is wet and smooth. Her father comes, catches her around the waist and drags her further up the beach before the waves can make up their mind whether to push her ashore or drag her in. James is waiting for her with his arms and legs spread like a starfish, grinning, his hair golden in the sunlight, sand sticking to his wet skin.

He looks healthy. Phillipa can't quite remember why that's important.

They spend the night on the beach and sleep on the sand, a pile of tangled limbs and a strange sense of relief.

In the morning, they travel through the ruins of a once great city. On a hill just outside, they find their house, and for many years they are happy. The house grows with time, gaining rooms for odds and ends, and the gardens keep spreading. The ocean is near. Each night Phillipa goes to sleep to the sound of waves, and each morning she wakes up to the cries of seagulls.

The sunlight bleaches her hair, and then time does the same. James grows weak and fades, leaving behind a steady ache rather than a stabbing pain. It hurts to be without him, but they've had decades together; Phillipa lets him go.

Her father goes next. He looks impossibly old and impossibly small, and Phillipa loves him very much. He takes her hand and confesses his sins. He says he made time where there was none.

He says: This isn't real.

Phillipa says: I know.

-

Her father doesn't mean to leave her alone, but he does. When she wakes up, she is twelve again, still, and her father's chest is unmoving under her cheek. Curled up against his other side is James, his skin cold and his grip lax where his hand has found Phillipa's.

It has taken years, decades, and she's lost everything in a single afternoon. She leaves her father and James where they are, peaceful, and packs a bag of necessities. She's not sure what she'll do, but she can't stay. There's nothing left for her here, in this house, maybe nothing left for her anywhere; she tries calling her grandparents but can't reach them.

On TV there's talk of people who are immune, and Phillipa thinks that if she's not sick yet, maybe she'll never be. Come to Baltimore, says a doctor with tired, sad eyes; we need your help.

Phillipa's not sure she believes her, but what else is there? She doesn't want to be immune. Why her and not James? Her father? But if she can help someone else's brother, someone else's father -- she has to try.

It takes her two and a half weeks to travel across the country. Millions have died, but millions are still alive, some staying put and hoping for the best, others trying to get to family or find a safe haven; people coming from nowhere, going nowhere. The roads are busy, but the only thing spreading faster than the virus is the fear of infection, and Phillipa has a hard time getting anyone to stop for her.

In Arkansas, a family in a minivan picks her up. The mother is driving, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. There's a baby in the front seat next to her, and the father is in the back with a girl only a couple of years younger than Phillipa. 

Phillipa explains that she's going to Baltimore, that she thinks she's immune, and the mother looks at her with such hope Phillipa wishes she could go back and not mention it.

Baltimore, the mother says, nodding; the woman on the television said --

The baby is too quiet and the father is failing to suppress his coughing, but Phillipa doesn't say anything, just nods in return.

They drive for hours. They drive past abandoned cars, and cars with people still in them, unmoving.

They make it as far as Washington. The mother and daughter are both coughing by then, and the father has gone quiet, a sluggish trail of blood dripping from his nose.

The mother says they have to rest, just for a few hours; she must know that if they stop, that's as far as they'll ever go. Phillipa refuses to stay. She avoids the mother's eyes when they say their goodbyes, and doesn't tell her there are worse ways to go than while being surrounded by family.

It takes her nearly two days to reach the Baltimore CDC, and when she gets there, it's chaos. There are people with signs, demanding a cure that doesn't exist. A man is walking around, feverish, telling people to repent, repent, getting up every time the crowd shoves him down.

Phillipa doesn't know why she came. It's futile. She's hungry and alone and the whole world has gone mad. She has no purpose. She has nowhere to go.

There is a woman. _Daughters_ , she says. _We, daughters, shall make from twelve what men could not._

She is insane, but in a world gone mad her words soar. She makes more sense than the people cursing the CDC and crying out for God. Even so, Phillipa almost walks away. Walks away to where? She thinks of busy roads and abandoned cars, people on their way to die.

 _Daughters_ , the woman says, and Phillipa stays.

-

 _Great men_ , the Elder says. _Fathers and brothers and sons, locking us in cages, throwing away the key. Great men -- I loved them all!_ She spreads her arms and fingers, like scattering ashes. _Dust! They made the bullets that killed them. They fed the virus that ate them. We are the army they feared us to be. We are their daughters; we inherit their Earth. Where they perish, we thrive._

There are no men among their ranks.

 _They had their chance_ , says the Elder. _To stop it; to change it; to be better. To not make bullets; to not feed the virus. Sad eyes, cold eyes, otter eyes._ She makes a low, mournful sound, but when she speaks again, her voice is sharp, cutting, hungry, knowing. _Flowers, lilacs, red, red everywhere; blood is all he ever witnessed, a father without a daughter, my friend, my friends._

Every woman is someone's daughter, and thus all are welcome to join, to stay, to go, and to return.

_They locked my mother away. They locked me away. Reds and blues, they tried to lock us all away, to silence us, but we are not silenced, and we are not caged._

Many come, some leave, most stay, few return.

 _Time is made of circles_ , the Elder says. _Time is made of secrets._

Phillipa stays, and she stays, and she stays.

-

After the first time the Elder kills someone, she stands over the corpse and sways. It's a slow, slow dance, blood dripping from the knife she still holds.

Amy, who used to be in the military, says: He left you no choice; we do what we must.

The Elder drops the knife and holds her hand out. Phillipa, standing closest to her, steps in and tangles their fingers together in a slick red grip, sharing the dead man's blood.

 _I have done my time_ , says the Elder. _I have paid for my crimes. We are none of us guilty._

We are none of us guilty, Phillipa repeats to herself when it's her turn, months later, hot red blood splattering across her cheek; we do what we must.

The Elder cleans Phillipa's face with a wet rag. She is not gentle, but Phillipa feels comforted nonetheless. When she's done, the Elder grabs hold of Phillipa's hair with both hands and turns her head this way and that.

 _Growing like a weed, you are_ , she says. _Turning red when I'm not looking; have you witnessed time, or has time witnessed you?_

Phillipa thinks back to the years spent by the ocean, the cries of seagulls in the morning, James laughing as he runs down the path leading to the ruins of a once great city, gardens within gardens. 

She says: Both.

-

There are lean winters and lean summers. There is death by violence and death by sickness. There are more miles under Phillipa's feet than stars in the night sky. She grows into her second adulthood in a world ruled by fear, but she lives with women ruled by courage.

Dark has fallen, and the Elder sits across the fire from her. There are new lines around the Elder's mouth, and the hood she wears throws the rest of her face into shadows. She is fickle, and she is unstable; she is contrary; she is their red thread, their prophet. The Daughters stand tall and do not fall, because _she_ sits behind them, mother spider, weaving webs that hold them all. 

Phillipa isn't sure how she feels about the herbs the Elder uses to chase her visions, but the Elder brushes aside her concerns.

 _No reds and blues no more_ , she says. _I'm free to choose yellow. Only smoke will reach smoke-like memories, thoughts, fragments -- the past and the future, intertwined, scattered, incomplete. This is our present, here, now, and these are our choices; this is our story. Have you noticed the change?_

So much has changed, Phillipa has stopped keeping track.

 _Men are our memories. My father, your father, dust and ashes, bullets and bone fragments._ She inhales her laugh, lets it out in short, uncontrolled bursts. Her smile is an open wound. _Everything was different for my mother, your mother; you know this, daughter. Our fathers had all the books, numbers, keys. We died, and the story was about them. No more! No more. This story is about you._

She asks for Phillipa's name, which she already knows and has known for more than a decade.

 _Your other name_ , she says, _the name you used in my dream. Bad, wrong, ill-omen, ravens in the sky. Healed wings and fallen towers._

 _Mal_ , she says, and a chill runs down Phillipa's spine, the little hairs on her arms standing on end.

The Elder cocks her head. _Out of order, the keys to your cage; not yet. Not yet_.

-

Phillipa does her best to forget and almost succeeds. She has no use for visions and no time for nightmares. The years are long, the stars are bright, and the road is never-ending. 

The Daughters walk the Earth and survive against all odds, but one way or another, death comes for all. By the time she turns thirty, the list of people Phillipa has lost is longer than her arm, but she never gets used to it.

 _You still bleed_ , says the Elder when she finds Phillipa twisting twine around feathers to leave on Amy's grave. _All those wounds, and you still have blood to give, nourishing us all._

We all bleed, says Phillipa.

 _Some more than others_ , the Elder says, reaching out to pluck a feather from Phillipa's fingers. _And time is not done with you yet._

It's another three years before Phillipa finds out how right she is.

-

The wagon sways under them, the road rough under the wheels. The Elder sits with her back stooped and her black robes gathered around her, like a great big vulture waiting for the perfect moment to crack Phillipa's skull open and feast on what's inside.

Phillipa waits, unsettled. She's never been afraid of the Elder, but that doesn't mean she's never uncomfortable in her presence.

 _What will you call your children?_ The Elder eventually asks.

It's an odd question. Phillipa is a Daughter for life; she'll never have children. She says as much.

The Elder clicks her tongue, dissatisfied. _If you don't know now, I never will. Threads unraveling and coming back together, my faithful songbird soaring free, flying high, falling far. You love us, I know; but you're never coming back._

I'm not leaving, Phillipa says; where would I go?

 _To the devil_ , the Elder says. _To make a deal, to recover what was lost. I'll send you to her, because you told me I would; do you see?_

Phillipa does not.

The Elder hums, unconcerned. _Sing me a song, songbird, before I give you your wings back._

Phillipa could say no, but she rarely does. Her voice is rusty and wavering around the notes, her tongue tentative around the shape of the words, a long-faded memory of her grandmother folding and unfolding like an origami flower. 

_Alouette, alouette_ , murmurs the Elder when Phillipa is done. _Don't let them pluck your wings, don't let them break your tail. You will fall, and we will meet again._

-

In more than twenty years, the Elder has never given Phillipa reason not to trust her.

It takes her weeks to locate the facility the Elder spoke of, and once she does, the only reason she gets in and does not get shot is that she asks for the devil by name.

They listen to what she has to say, take her blood, sit her down at gunpoint. The devil waves away the guns, ashes falling from her cigarette. Strange, she says, one hand resting on top of the test results; very strange.

But she smiles -- a thin, hard, brittle curve Phillipa would be a fool not to be wary of.

You are not one of our usual subjects, says the devil; but you are, it seems, uniquely suited for time travel. 

At this stage, she says, she can't guarantee that Phillipa will survive the experience. They both know that's not quite true. Jones will send Phillipa back, because she already has; Phillipa will survive -- long enough to tell someone, at least, or the Elder would never have known to send her here. It's a paradox, and many things the Elder said over the years only make sense now, in the light of it.

The devil asks for her name, and Phillipa thinks, _Bad, wrong, ill-omen, ravens in the sky._

Her mother was only ever pebbles on a beach, shadows in her father's eyes. She owes her daughter this much, Phillipa thinks as she steals her mother's name.

 _Mal_.

-

Mal ends up in France, like walking through a door and finding a childhood fairytale on the other side. She almost forgot France ever existed, that Paris is a real place, and here it is, people speaking her grandmother's language, buildings and streets spreading out on either side of the Seine, vibrant and alive.

She loves it. She loves it all. She spends days walking the streets, learning the constellations of the city blocks, stealing food when she gets hungry. She speaks to anyone who will speak to her, her French quickly improving. She makes friends, gets new clothes, papers that officially claim her mother's name as hers.

There are so many people. So impossibly many that on some days she can barely stand it, these dead people walking around. She loves them all, but she does not try to save them; she's not the messiah Jones is waiting for. She just wants to live.

She traces the faint lines on her face and thinks she should look older than she does. It's like ever since Jones injected her with the serum and time swallowed her whole, she hasn't aged a day. She stops looking at mirrors, because she only ever sees her mother looking back.

She gets curious about her own past, about time and paradoxes, the cries of seagulls in the morning. When she goes looking for answers, she finds her own grandfather. Miles takes to her like she's a long lost family member, which amuses her and tears her apart in turns. She should leave, travel somewhere far away, spend the rest of her life on a remote island somewhere.

She stays. She learns to bury her secrets so deep, she almost forgets they exist. She rehearses the past she's invented for herself until it feels more real than the future. If her projections are more vicious than most, if she sometimes looks older in dreams than she does in real life, no one comments on it.

And then, one day, Miles gently takes her arm and pulls her away from the maze schematics she's preoccupied with.

Mal, I want you to meet someone. This is my son, Dominick.

Dominick Cobb?

Yes.

Dominick's hand is warm and steady and sure, and he holds hers for a moment too long.

-

Mal doesn't mean to fall in love. She means to run the opposite way, as far as she can, as fast as she can. This is her life, this is her story, and she doesn't approve of the direction it's taking. At the same time -- surely it is impossible. Her life is a paradox, but this is where the line is drawn. Her real mother will come along one day soon, and everyone will comment on the coincidence of their names and looks, but then Mal will leave, and no one will think much of it. This is the story she tells herself, because she's not ready to give up dream sharing or Miles' guidance. She's not the Mal who falls for Dominick Cobb; she can't be.

Some of the Daughters hated men with fervor, but not Mal, and not the Elder, for all she did blame them; _mother, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing_.

Dominick is just a man. Young, charismatic and brilliant, but all the same, just a man. A good man, a kind man. A man with a smile just for Mal. There are no shadows in his eyes. Mal thinks there must be another Dominick Cobb out there for that other Mal, because this one? This one is hers.

They get married a year after their first meeting.

-

Mal is pregnant and attending a soiree with Dom when she meets Jennifer Goines.

They've barely arrived, and already Mal's feet are tired and she needs to go to the bathroom. For Dom, she puts on a smile and exchanges pleasantries with acquaintances instead. The guest list is a muddled mix of politicians, military figures and corporation representatives, and very nearly everyone is doing a great job of looking like they want to be there.

Dom nods at a man approaching them; their host, Leland Goines, and trailing behind him, looking like a sullen doll --

Mal knows she's staring. She swallows, gets through the greetings with the barest amount of grace, and excuses herself to the bathroom.

She's washing her hands when Jennifer Goines joins her. Jennifer leans forward until her nose touches the mirror, her eyes crossing. She sees Mal looking and sticks out her tongue.

 _Are you wondering what I'm doing?_ She asks, eying Mal through the mirror. She tilts her head, twitches, like she doesn't like Mal's expression. _I'm not crazy, you know. Reds and blues; I'm all better now. Daddy trusts me._

I'm sure he does, Mal says.

 _Mal_ , Jennifer says. _Bad, wrongful, ill. Do I have something on my face? You keep staring at me, Mal, and I keep telling you, there's nothing to see. Do I know you?_

You will, says Mal; thirty-odd years from now, you'll send me to the devil, and she will give me the keys to my own cage; and I will walk in and lock the door behind myself.

Jennifer sputters and laughs. She slaps a hand against the mirror. _Which side are we on again? Don't let daddy hear; I'm all better now. Sing for me, little songbird. Bad little songbird. Tell me a story._

Mal tells her everything.

-

Mal's daughter is born on a bright, sunny day. She is tiny and warm and perfect, and Mal doesn't realize some part of her is still hoping against hope that she is wrong about everything until Dom says her name:

Phillipa.

She turns to look at him, and the baby blinks up at him, and she wants to scream and scream and scream and scream.

Instead, she smiles weakly and says: Yes.

-

There is another child, a boy, and Mal tucks her nose against his downy hair and whispers: I've missed you, James; welcome back.

She does not intend to ever leave them. This much, she thinks, time can give her. A different path: a daughter with a mother, and no shadows in Dom's eyes. Perhaps Jones will succeed, the plague will never happen, and Mal will be allowed to stay, paradox or not.

Sometimes, unable to sleep, she gets up in the middle of the night. Sometimes Dom comes to find her.

Promise me again, she says, and Dom wraps his arms around her and promises. He says he'll always be with her; that they'll grow old together.

She lets herself believe him.

-

The sand is smooth and clings to her skin. The waves try to drag her in. Dom holds out a hand to her and pulls her to her feet. 

She knows this place, knows it down to her bones. Her very marrow recognizes this sand. There is no city, but it's the same spot, same place, same mind. 

It's not so bad, at first. They have each other, and the freedom to build, to create. Mal knows time will wait for them. But everything reminds her of things she doesn't want to remember, and one day, before Dom wakes, she walks to the edges of the city they've built. She runs up the hill to where the house she grew old in for the first time is waiting for her. Time has taken its toll on the structures, and the gardens are overgrown, wild and thorny. She tears the house down and lets it crumble into the ocean.

She leaves the gardens; the thickets don't look like they've ever been touched by loving hands.

Back in the city, she goes to the house she presented to Dom as her childhood home, and hides her totem away. All her lies, all her memories, locked away and forgotten. She has no children, she has no parents; no past and no future. She can grow old with Dom, honest and unburdened, here, in a world where neither time nor death will soon catch up with them.

She's happy. She has all she needs.

Years go by, and Dom grows restless. He starts talking about waking up, about their children, and while Mal does her best not to encourage his delusions, they are persistent. She doesn't believe him, and doesn't believe him, and doesn't believe him, until one morning, she does. She remembers. It's not real, none of it. How could she forget?

They wake up. At least, Dom thinks they wake up, and their positions are switched. Mal waits for that one morning when Dom finally believes her, but it never comes. Dom keeps choosing their imaginary children over their real ones, over her. It breaks her heart, but she can't leave him, can't bring herself to wake up without him.

She leaves him no choice but to follow her.

She clips her wings and falls.

-

Phillipa is a happy child. At least, she does not later remember being unhappy. She is unburdened, and for a child that is enough.


End file.
